Jessica CowgillMy project is an indie/alternative music magazine. The mode of address I used was direct address as it draws the reader in, for example how the main artist who is on the front cover and who the feature article is about is looking straight into the camera, many other magazines do this for example:-

In both magazines close ups and direct

• The colour scheme reflects the audience and genre (directed at a more feminine audience and the genre). The colours used are quite natural to make the content stand out more.

• The fonts used are very feminine and quite fancy as the target audience like unique

styles, examples of the font used are – This This and This. • It is vital to do something new to the genre to attract a wider audience, for example I

aimed to draw in a female audience to a music magazine, which is very rare unless it is a pop magazine. Magazines like Kerrang use a variety of fonts which are directed at a more male audience, it also reflects the genre (rock) at the fonts are big, bold and usually have cracks in them.

• My magazine fonts Kerrang Magazine Fonts

Representation of social groups

• My magazine represents the target audience as natural, intelligent teenagers/young adults. This is done through the use of language. It offers an alternative to the stereotypes we see in the media as other media products do not see the real people in smaller towns.

• My magazine does not tell people how to dress, act and what music to listen to but grasps peoples individuality. The interviews in my magazine are of peoples lives and how they came into the music business, not their latest scandals. • The group I am representing in my magazine is individual young adults who care more about what's what than who's who. This is mainly shown in the contents page, the people in the pictures are shown as laid back and unique. • My magazine challenges stereotyping and looks to stop stereotypes in the media as people should embrace theirIndividuality.

Stereotype of aGangster

Stereotype of old ladies

e.g- knitting, glasses, grey hair, dull clothing, happy, bingo etc.e.g- Gold chains, neat facial hair,

un-necessary sun glasses, guns, crime etc.

Distribution

Type Private (GmbH)

Industry Publishing, Broadcasting

Founded 1875

Headquarters   Hamburg, Germany

Area served Europe, USA, China, Russia

Revenue / Turnover €1.79 Billion Euro(2006)

Employees 6,400

SubsidiariesBauer Radio Box Television (50% stake)

Website www.bauerverlag.de

BauerThe Bauer Media Group (Bauer Verlagsgruppe) is a large German publishing company based in Hamburg, which operates in 15 countries worldwide. Since the company was founded in 1875, it has been privately-owned and under management by the Bauer family. It was formerly called Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG, abbreviated to HBV and usually shortened to H. Bauer.Worldwide circulation of Bauer Media Group's magazine titles amounts to 38 million magazines a week.Have published music magazines such as Kerrang! and Q.

Chosen company• The institution I have chosen to distribute my magazine is Bauer, the

same institution who distribute Kerrang magazine. I have chosen this institution as they mainly distribute magazines directed towards a male audience of rock genre and would probably like to widen their audience and sales.

• This institution also distributes mainly cheaper weekly magazines whereas mine is an affordable but expensive looking ‘Glossy’ magazine which will be more appealing to young adults as they would not want to spend money every week on magazines as they would want to go out and have fun, a monthly magazine will keep them interested as it would contain more information from a whole month rather than a week

Audience

• My target audience would be at the age of 16-25, any ethnicity/nationality, and most likely un-employed and in further or higher education e.g. College or university.

• Their special interests would be finding new and upcoming artists and attending niche festivals and concerts.

• This is a good audience to target at they are a loyal niche audience. This would be good for my product financially as they would almost always buy the magazine.

A way to describe the audience is GRASS

G – Gender R – Race As used aboveA - AgeS – Socio-economicS – Status

• My audience feedback gained a positive reaction from my target audience, the things they liked in particular were the use of colours and fonts, also the contents page was very popular as that was packed full of information in bite sized chunks.

How I addressed the audience

• I attracted the audience in a number of ways:-• My title- I chose my title as Lamoure means love and the cassette tape

symbolizes music and together symbolizes ‘love music’.

• The key image on the front cover is a close up of my model looking straight into the camera which is familiar to the audience and draws them in.• The contents page provides key information of what they will expect in the magazine and also eye catching, the left side of the page is to interest the reader and the right is to inform them.

• On the double page spread, the title is the artists name followed by a snippet of the article, this introduces the artist and shows the style of journalism which is informal, the reader can recognise this straight away.

• The structure is in columns but is in the form of a Q&A, a mixture of formal and informal to make it familiar as many other magazines use this structure.

• The layout is simplistic so the reader is drawn to the article and not distracted by bright

colours and irrelevant images. • The article itself is about the artists life and how shecame into the music industry and also refers to the artists latest album and single to promote it, as other magazines do.

What have I learnt?

• I have learnt a lot about different technologies during the production of my magazine for example- how to use desktop publisher, Adobe PhotoShop, Using cameras correctly and how effective and important the correct lighting is.

• I learnt that small changes in the positioning of the lights makes a massive change.

Strengths and weaknesses• I also learnt that there is a lot of competition and challenges you have to

overcome to be the best. There are limitations of technology, one limitation I had to deal with was the lack of time and money, of course big magazines have lots of money for photo shoots and editing technology to make their magazine look amazing whereas I only had the skills learnt within one week.

My overall weakness was time and keeping to a schedule whereas my strength was overcoming this obstacle.

Progress

• From my preliminary task I have come a long way as you can see:-

• More text• Variety of fonts,

colours creativity etc

• Better editing

• My preliminary task shows how bare the magazine front cover was and how amateur it looks compared to my actual complete project, there was a lack of variety of fonts and colours.

• There is also a better use of layout rather than boxes containing text the text stands out so much that it doesn’t need a box surrounding it.

• The title is a lot more creative compared to boring and informative.

Progre

ss

Conclusion• In conclusion, I believe I have come a long way from my

preliminary task and learnt a lot along the way of producing my magazine, I have also learnt more about people and different social groups.

• My strengths in my magazine are that I put a lot of effort in making the magazine appeal to a wide audience, look professional, appeal to both genders but mainly females.

• My one weakness was failing to produce a perfect picture as I could not figure out the settings on the camera.

• I am very pleased with my finished work and would not change much if the chance came to me.